Why Wear Seatbelts?

Today there are roughly 46 million current smokers in the United States, which is nearly 20% of our entire population.  If 20% of the 45,316 who died in 2006 automobile accidents were smokers, your chances of dying from smoking are roughly 50 times greater than being killed in a vehicle collision.  With those kind of odds, why even wear a seatbelt? With roughly 200,000 middle-aged smokers expected to die from smoking related diseases this year, each an average of 22.5 years early, wouldn't it make more sense to sell the seatbelts and the airbags and use the money for a down payment on a coffin?

I corresponded with a 46 year-old with terminal lung cancer and little time remaining.  We found we had something in common.  She mentioned that she always bought her cigarettes by the pack too because she always believed that tomorrow would finally be the day she quit.  We rolled the same dice.  Her luck ran out.  We both quit smoking.  Sadly, with entirely different outcomes.

Why not stay off of the above list altogether and increase your odds of dying of natural causes at a ripe old age? Why cause your own death and accept 50% odds of losing roughly 5,000 sunrises? Is gradually smoking ourself to death committing suicide? If the world's dirtiest drug delivery device kills you, should your family consider your death to be murder or an accident? You may want to try to explain it to them now.  It might help take the sting out of their coming belief that you loved nicotine more than them.

According to the World Health Organization, each and every day smoking claims more than thirteen thousand lives.  Which cigarette in which pack contains the toxin that gives birth to that first cancerous cell, to the first diseased cell, or that pulls death's trigger in producing a massive heart attack or stroke? 

It isn't that we can't hear the entire world screaming the insanity of us smoking pack after pack. It's that our addicted limbic mind is screaming even louder that smoking nicotine is as important as eating, with quitting akin to starvation.

Nicotine addiction is a disease and "wanting" disorder of the mind that's as permanent as alcoholism and enslaves the same dopamine pathways as illegal drugs. The following two free e-books will make you more dependency recovery savvy and than your addiction is strong. Knowledge isn't just power but a quitting method.

            

I cannot promise that you will succeed in quitting if read both. What I can promise is that you'll at last know how. Why fight in darkness when we can turn on the lights! Yes you can!!

Breathe deep, hug hard, live long!

John R. Polito
Nicotine Cessation Educator

Founder of WhyQuit and author of "Freedom from Nicotine - The Journey Home"

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Last updated on May 23, 2010 by John R. Polito